Why this British island was abandoned for 90 years
Abandoned by its entire population in 1930, St Kilda has been uninhabited ever since. St Kilda is seriously isolated - it鈥檚 an archipelago of islands over one hundred miles west of the Scottish mainland and 40 miles of rough Atlantic waves away from the nearest pub or shop. That isolation means that it has a unique environment. It鈥檚 packed with rare and endemic wildlife and the owners of the island - the National Trust for Scotland - want to keep it that way. The Ministry of Defence has a construction project on the main island of Hirta and it鈥檚 naturalist and broadcaster Conor McKinney's job to make sure that the boats and builders that will be coming and going don鈥檛 bring unwanted guests with them - things like sea squirts, Japanese knotweed or - worst of all - the rats that would very quickly decimate the extraordinary seabirds of St Kilda.
First broadcast on Costing the Earth, 27 October 2021.
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